A key resource of most, if not all, enterprises is knowledge. For example, in a customer service environment, customers expect prompt and correct answers to their information requests. These information requests may relate to problems with products the customer has purchased, or to questions about products they may decide to purchase in the future. In most cases, the answer to the customer's question exists somewhere within the enterprise. In other cases, the answer may have existed in the enterprise at one time, but is no longer there. The challenge is to find the answer and provide it to the customer in a timely manner. Further complicating the situation is the fact that very few customer service representatives possess the skills necessary to assist customers on more than a limited number of topics. Unfortunately, providing customer service representatives with the knowledge necessary to adequately serve customers involves time-consuming and expensive training. Even with training, customer service representatives will inevitably encounter questions for which no reasonable amount of training can prepare them to answer without expert consultation. The delay endured by the customer as the customer service representative consults with an expert is inconvenient, and often intolerable.
One solution to this problem has been to replace the customer service representative with a Web site of product-unique or vendor-unique reference material. Whenever the customer has a question, he/she is referred to the Web site for the answer. Another possible approach is for the vendor to maintain an email address specifically for customer inquiries, and to instruct customers to send all information requests to the email address. In addition to reducing the cost of providing customer service support, these solutions also afford the customer service representative a convenient forum for preparing a personal and comprehensive response. Unfortunately, they are considerably less timely than either of the previous two approaches, sacrifice the quality of the customer interaction and dehumanize the entire process.
Some enterprises employ Web search engines in an effort to provide reliable access to relevant information in the enterprise (e.g., on a company's computer network). Unfortunately, because these web search engines check for particular textual content without the advantage of context or domain knowledge, they generally do not reliably and consistently return the desired information. This is at least partly due to the fact that languages are not only inherently ambiguous, but also because they are susceptible to expressing a single concept any number of ways using numerous and unrelated words and/or phrases. By simply searching for specific words, prior art search engines fail to identify the other alternatives that may also be helpful.
What is desired is a system that can quickly deliver timely and highly relevant knowledge upon request.